


Goodbye

by DanaKScully



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 18:26:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10859577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanaKScully/pseuds/DanaKScully
Summary: After 6x20.Kalinda has left her apartment, and Cary, behind. But she's not ready to go yet.Basically, it's the proper goodbye they never had.





	Goodbye

_"When did it start raining?"_

Kalinda couldn't remember the moment she started getting wet, but she was soaked now. She had been just walking without thinking, saying one last goodbye to Chicago. She hadn't grown up there, but her best memories had taken place between those high buildings. During all the times she had felt insecure, that city made her feel like home. Not many places did.

Anyway, there was no chance she could take a train like this. She had to make one last stop home. So, after a curse or two, she turned around. It took her three minutes to realize she was walking towards Cary's house. A bitter laugh escaped her mouth.

During the past months she had realized something important. She would never feel like he did, because she didn't feel things the same way. She told him six years earlier: he was hydrogen and she was spaghetti.

He was intense, loyal, warm, and she was... Simple, in a way he could never understand. She acted. Some times her actions made more sense than others.

The problem was, he wasn’t just a man of words, as she had thought when she met him. He was a man of words, actions and everything. He was an all-in kind of man, and that caught her by surprise. She found herself, at some point, wishing they could wake up on a Sunday and just waste the whole day in bed.

But the thing is she was still Kalinda Sharma, and she always had interests. It wasn’t like she could ever leave those behind. It came with the job. They didn’t mean anything, they just were there. She knew Cary saw her as strong, independent, and the truth was that he was stronger than her when it came to feeling. She couldn’t make a division; her interests were her interests. And somehow, she always put Cary over them. Not his business, but him. She was always loyal first to Cary.

It was the reason she was in this mess in the first place. She wouldn’t melt his ear with sweet words, she wouldn’t tell him that she loved him and she couldn’t go on without him. It wouldn’t be true. She could go on without anyone. She learned that from Nick, just like she learned she could never again be in a closed relationship. She was strong on her own.

She wished, just for a second, that he would have understood that.

Kalinda got the wet keys from her pocket and opened her door. The last time she said goodbye to her apartment she hadn’t even looked at it. This time, she slid her fingers through the kitchen countertop. Slowly, walked towards the bedroom and stared at the hole in the wall she had made three years earlier. Then she opened her drawer.

_“Hello, Kalinda.”_

_“What the f-“_ , she pulled up the whole drawer, throwing all her clothes to the floor, and held it over her head, ready to hit the intruder. But it wasn’t Bishop or anyone he had sent. 

_“Calm down, lioness. It’s me.”_

Cary was looking at her with the old same eyes, but something was different in them. Colder. He knew she was leaving.

_“What are you doing here?”_

_“Never left. I was waiting for you to come back. Then I realized you weren’t.”_

His eyes were red and swelled up. She realized he’d been crying.

_“Cary…”_

_“No, wait. Let me say something. I know you did this for me. You told me once that people do things for a reason. Not a hundred, just one.”_

_“Cary.”_

_“You told me that you were knowable, just not by me.”_

_“Cary, look at me.”_

She was now standing right in front of him. She caressed his cheek slowly, like he used to do with her back when they were nothing but a few kisses and a couple of laughs. He closed his eyes.

_“You were wrong, Kalinda. I know you now. We’re different and it can hurt, but I don’t care. I understood.”_

_“What did you understand?”_

_“You’re hard core. You have to be. You don’t trust anybody, ever. That’s why, for so long, you wouldn’t trust me either. Because you don’t even trust yourself. But I was there for you, and even when you didn’t think you could trust me, you protected me. That’s what you do. You protect the people you love. It’s why you do everything.”_

She remained silent.

_“I was there all the time. In your worse. You know why I did it. And although mysterious and private, you’re loyal. That’s why you’re doing this now, and I’m telling you, you don’t have to. You don’t owe me anything.”_

Suddenly, she looked very pissed. She removed her hand from his face and frowned.

_“Do you really think that? That I’m doing this because I feel like I owe you!?”_

He was clearly confused.

_“Not owe me, but you feel like you have to protect me.”_

_“No! Cary, I told you. You make me too calculated. I don’t make things complicated, I do what I want to, all the time. You don’t get me because you think I always have some hidden interest. And that’s not me! It has never been me. Every time I talked to you was because I wanted to. I was with you because I wanted to. The job came with me, yes. I tried to find out things, of course. But it was never the main reason.”_

_“Then why are you doing this now? You don’t have to, Kalinda, I’m fine. It was my trial, I was Bishop’s target. Don’t take the blame.”_

She stared at him, with a serious look in her face. Her hands were nervously handling her ring, while she tried to find the words.

_“I’m not big on words, Cary. So don’t make this even harder than it is, okay?”_

He swallowed and let her talk.

_“When you were about to go to prison I told you I wouldn’t disappear on you. I meant it. So I didn’t. This is me, this is what you get of me when I-“_

She was almost crying now. Cary had never seen her like that. She was, finally, opening. And what surprised him the most was that he wasn’t surprised by what he saw. She wasn’t that mysterious, after all.

_“This is me, wanting to save you. Let me.”_

He was crying too. He had never been afraid to show his feelings to her and he wasn’t starting then. He held her while the tears streamed down her face.

_“I just… I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to suffer because of me.”_

She kissed him. It was a salty kiss, yet bitter. He placed his hands on her hips and the kiss deepened. Suddenly, she was surrounding his neck with her arms and it look like she didn’t wanna let go.

Kalinda broke the kiss and kept her forehead against his.

_“Because you haven’t suffered because of me?”_

He released a warm laugh and his fingers pulled away a lock of her hair.

_“Actually, no.”_

_“Yes, you did.”_

_“Okay, I did.”_

She was the one laughing now, softly leaning her head against his chest.

_“I don’t regret a thing, Kalinda",_  he whispered.

She kissed him again, and this time, none of them broke it. Luckily, they had a bed right behind them.

* * *

 

Kalinda woke up first. She quietly got dressed. Even used the clothes she was wearing the night before, dry now, so she wouldn’t make a noise. She couldn’t bare another goodbye.

She had to go.

She wished, just for a second, that he understood her leaving was her way to say _“I love you, too”_.


End file.
